Maharashtra: Lonar lake colour changes to pink; experts, locals surprised
Aurangabad: The colour of water in Maharashtra's Lonar lake, formed after a meteorite hit the Earth some 50,000 years ago, has changed to pink with experts attributing it to the salinity and presence of algae in the water body.
Located around 500 km from Mumbai, the Lonar lake in Buldhana district is a popular tourist hub and also attracts scientists from all over the world.
Of late, the change in colour of water of the lake, having a mean diameter of 1.2 km, has not only surprised locals, but also nature enthusiasts and scientists.
Experts say this is not the first time that the colour change has happened, but this time it is more glaring.
The lake, which is a notified national geo-heritage monument, has saline water with pH of 10.5, Gajanan Kharat, member of the Lonar lake conservation and development committee, told PTI.
"There are algae in the water body. The salinity and algae can be responsible for this change," he said.
"There is no oxygen below one meter of the lake's water surface. There is an example of a lake in Iran, where water becomes reddish due to increase in salinity," he noted.
Kharat said the level of water in the Lonar lake is currently low as compared to the few past years and there is no rain to pour fresh water in it.
"The low level of water may lead to increased salinity and change in the behaviour of algae because of atmospheric changes...this may be the reason for colour change. This is not the first time that the colour of water has changed," he said.
Dr Madan Suryavanshi, head of the geography department of Aurangabad's Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, said looking at the scale of this colour change, "this cant be a human intervention".
"In case of a natural phenomenon, there are fungi which generally give a greenish colour to water most of the times. This (the current colour change) seems to be a biological change in the Lonar crater," he said.
During the lockdown phase, there may not have been any disturbance to water which led to this change, he said.
"Season-wise changes occur in water and this might be case with the Lonar lake. We can examine the change if we go there in a week...then we can say more about the change," he said.
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Quad leaders to launch Cancer Moonshot initiative with focus on cervical cancer in Indo-Pacific
At this week’s leaders’ conference, the Quad grouping of Australia, the US, India, and Japan—will reveal an ambitious project to prevent, detect, and treat cancer, with an initial focus on cervical cancer throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Biden will serve as the host of the Quad Leaders' Summit, which will also be attended by PM Modi, Fumio Kishida of Japan, and Anthony Albanese of Australia.
The "Cancer Moonshot," which will be unveiled at a special event on the fringes of the Quad Leaders' Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on September 21, was hailed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Thursday as a "very significant" initiative that will bring a human element to the "otherwise geopolitically dominated" Quad agenda.
This is a top concern. The Quad hopes to apply cutting-edge techniques to prevent, detect, treat, and lessen the impact of cancer on patients and their families through this historic initiative, Misri said at a press conference prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US on Saturday. "Our initial goal is to work together to lessen the incidence of cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific area," he declared.
The Quad project seems to be designed to expand upon the Cancer Moonshot, which former US President Barack Obama started in 2016. President Joe Biden and his wife Jill brought the program back to life with the intention of averting over four million cancer-related deaths in the US by 2047 and enhancing the quality of life for those who are affected by the disease.
More than 95 new programs, policies, and resources have been made possible by the US Cancer Moonshot. Originally coined to describe the act of sending a spaceship to the moon, the term "moonshot" now denotes extremely difficult and creative initiatives.
According to Misri, the Quad will publish a separate factsheet on the Cancer Moonshot that will list all of the initiative's components. He continued by saying that a major focus of the Quad meeting's agenda will be achieving health security, public goods delivery, and sustainable development goals.
The Indo-Pacific region has long been the center of attention for the Quad. The organization came up with the audacious plan to provide one billion vaccination shots to nations in the Indo-Pacific region during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Quad extended this project in late 2022 to include study on pandemic and health emergency preparedness.
